Canadian art and stories – through a distinctly Canadian art experience.
The McMichael Canadian Art Collection offers its visitors a unique and truly Canadian experience. From the art within its walls to the surrounding landscape, the McMichael is the perfect gallery for an introduction to Canada’s art, its peoples, their cultures and their history.
Renowned for its devotion to collecting and exhibiting only Canadian art, the McMichael permanent collection consists of almost 6,000 artworks by Tom Thomson, the Group of Seven, their contemporaries, and First Nations, Inuit and other artists who have made a contribution to Canada’s artistic heritage.
The gallery welcomes on average 120,000 visitors annually.
100% Canadian Content
The McMichael Canadian Art Collection is the only major public art gallery devoted solely to the collecting and exhibiting of Canadian art. The gallery offers visitors the unique opportunity to enjoy Canadian landscape paintings in the woodland setting that inspired them.
Built of fieldstone and hand-hewn logs, the McMichael houses thirteen exhibition galleries and is situated amid 100 acres of serene conservation land. Floor-to-ceiling windows enable visitors to enjoy marvellous views of the densely wooded Humber River Valley.
Through a network of outdoor paths and hiking trails, visitors can discover outdoor sculptures and wander the McMichael Cemetery where six Group of Seven members and gallery co-founders Robert and Signe McMichael have been laid to rest.
See. Do. Discover.
The McMichael displays a wide range of exhibitions each year, and offers a stimulating array of programs and events for people of all ages. They include curators’ lectures, tours, music performances, kids’ camps, workshops, school programs and hands-on art activities.
Experience Canada in a day at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.
A Word from Our Executive Director
This year marks the ninetieth anniversary of the first exhibition by the Group of Seven—an event that changed forever the course of Canadian art. The remarkable paintings by the Group profoundly affected a generation of Canadians and the way they perceived their nation, including Robert and Signe McMichael. Their legacy and our future are directly related to that groundbreaking exhibition. To mark this milestone, a stunning array of exhibitions will be presented throughout 2010 highlighting the Group’s achievements and our glorious permanent collection.
Beginning this winter, we will bring many formerly unseen treasures from the vault to our gallery walls as the permanent collection is reinstalled, presenting the paintings in a way that invites a new look at old favourites, and allowing us to reinterpret the collection in light of new scholarship and new ideas.
In addition to visiting the collection in person, you will now be able to view this resource online. Over the past year and a half, our education and curatorial departments have been building an ambitious, multifaceted project that combines an accessible online collections database and an interactive social networking website, FootPrints: Legacy of the Group of Seven. As well, this project will include Following in the Footsteps of the Group of Seven, an exhibition opening on May 15. This remarkable exhibition charts art enthusiasts Sue and Jim Waddington’s lifelong quest of identifying the exact locations that are represented in the iconic landscapes of the Group of Seven. Join us and the Waddingtons in this astonishing journey through the land and imaginations of the Group.
In the autumn we are proud to present the exhibition Modern Spirits, curated by internationally acclaimed Canadian author Ross King. The Modern Spirits exhibition and publication, commissioned by the McMichael, will cast a new light on the art, lives, loves and interests of the Group of Seven members at a pivotal time in their artistic developments, while revealing international influences that informed their manners of painting the Canadian landscape.
Visit the McMichael often during this anniversary year and learn more about the enduring legacy of the Group of Seven, whose paintings touched the imaginations of the McMichaels and whose works continue to resonate with new generations of Canadians.
Tom Smart
Executive Director and CEO
